Upper Deck’s Travis Rhea Previews Batman 85th Set, DC Annual, and Teases Absolute Universe

Earlier this year DC and Upper Deck expanded their partnership in a major way, teasing a wave of new trading cards, tabletop games, and memorabilia, and the great news is that the partnership will be introducing its first products in 2024. There’s even better news though, as fans can get their first DC trading card set in November, as Upper Deck has revealed the first look and details for a special Batman 85th Anniversary set that will be dropping on e-Pack over the course of five weeks, and we’ve got everything you need to now right here, ComicBook had the chance to speak to Upper Deck Entertainment Director Travis Rhea all about the new all-encompassing Batman set, as well the first full Trading Card set DC Annual, and we even talked about the future and working with DC’s new Absolute Universe!

Batman 85th Anniversary Set

The first set as part of this expanded partnership will be the Batman 85th Anniversary set, and you can take a look at some of the cards featured below. The set will be released over the course of five weeks on the e-Pack platform, and will feature a host of iconic Batman characters, covers, vehicles, and more from the worlds of comics, movies, TV, and animation. The set will start rolling out on November 13th, and each week will see 10 new cards released through mid-December. As with many e-Pack cards, these are physical cards in addition to digital, and you can have them shipped to your home right after purchasing.

Funnily enough this set wasn’t actually part of the original rollout plan, but Upper Deck wasn’t going to let such a great moment in time pass them by. “Well, you know, for starters, we just couldn’t pass up the chance at jumping on a significant anniversary for Batman like that. It really wasn’t part of the original line plan, to be honest, but when Warner Bros. let us know that it was an opportunity and they showed us what kind of assets that we would be able to use, like, we, we just couldn’t pass it up,” Rhea said. “It’s really unusual for you to have a branding solution that allows you to dive into comics and animation and movies and TV, and not just characters, but vehicles. So we really did lean into that with this first anniversary set, and I feel like it’s really gonna turn out to be pretty great.”

“It’s a weekly pack launch. There’s five weeks, and each week kind of focuses on a different theme for Batman. Like one might be comic covers and another is going to be villains. Another is based on the film stuff, the, the live action stuff. We just keep it fresh as we go, but it’s really neat to see that cross section of one character, and if you’re going to choose one character, I mean, why not make it Batman, right? He’s. He’s got the deepest lore, so we’re super excited about that,” Rhea said.

[RELATED: Absolute Batman’s New Costume Turns Him Into a Walking Weapon, and Here’s Everything It Can Do]

Upper Deck also wanted to connect the Batman 85th celebration to their highly anticipated Skybox Metal Universe Batman set, and fans can actually grab a special #0 card for that set here. “But we also made it a tie-in. I mentioned it was not originally part of the line plan, so we decided to tie it into something that is and was part of the original plan. We’ve got Skybox Metal Universe Batman coming out next year, and so in this 85th weekly pack set, you can actually get card number zero for a preview card of that set as an achievement as you build your collection on this set,” Rhea said. “So we kind of thought that that was a nice little tease of the new set that’s going to come out next year while focusing on this anniversary.”

DC Annual

The first full set of this new era will be DC Annual, and taking a look at some of the early images, you can see that Upper Deck is featuring some very recent artwork and storylines. That’s pretty impressive when you consider this is the very first set and how much has shifted and changed in DC’s world throughout the past year.

“Well thank you for recognizing that, because that is always the challenge with an annual set is where do you cut it off, right? Like, at some point you’re going to have to cut it and start moving into production, but we want it to be as relevant and new and current as possible, obviously, since it’s an annual set,” Rhea said. “But that set, I think you’ll find has not only some relevant and new content, but it has a lot of familiar feel for annual fans. We didn’t want to throw out all the brand equity that we had with annual, so you’ll have some similar structure to the set and similar technology.”

“There’s definitely some lenticular cards in here and then some sketch cards, but we focused on making sure that the insert sets were very thematic to what DC has going on and will feel relevant and new. We’ve got some Dawn of DC in there, but also Beast War, and we’ll continue to do the rookies who are the rookie heroes and really try to tell that story of 23 and 24 as much as possible and then cut it and move on to the next one because there’s always all kinds of new content coming out from them,” Rhea said.

One thing Rhea is particularly excited to get to is DC’s Absolute Universe, which has taken the world by storm with Absolute Batman and Absolute Wonder Woman, and Absolute Superman is on the way very soon too.

“Like, I can’t wait to get to the Absolute stuff,” Rhea said, which led me to figure out how on earth Absolute Batman is going to fit on just one card. I proposed a six card format for Absolute Batman to truly capture the scale, and with a laugh Rhea said “Hey, can we steal that idea?” If it happens you heard it here first!

The DC Annual set will feature several different insert cards and variants to chase, including the Suspended Animation set, and there will be some truly rare cards to collect for those who seek a challenge.3 “So those are going to be tiered out with four different levels basically of rarity. Your most common, I think there’s around 20 different characters that are going to be numbered somewhere around 700, I think, I don’t know. And then they just get more rare from there to where I think the fourth level is somewhere around, I want to say it’s five. Only five characters and number to 100. So those, that one’s going to be like a collecting bonanza. Like people are going to be really interested in chasing that and building the whole set out. So that’s going to be really fun to watch,” Rhea said.

The Future

As for what’s next, the sky is the limit, and Upper Deck already has plans for years to come. That said, they want to be patient and really give each of these foundational sets their due, and they’ve been working DC extensively to make sure every set shines and is as current and relevant as possible.

“Oh yeah, I mean honestly, we have a calendar mapped out through 29 at this point, so we’ve got a lot of plans here, and obviously when you’re that far ahead, you gotta be flexible,” Rhea said. “And we don’t know all of the DC plans moving forward, but we are trying to keep in sync with the publishing team, at least from a planning point of view on a monthly basis. So as they start to focus on stuff, they let us know as far out ahead as possible and then we start to plug it in and readjust stuff in our calendar.”

“But the biggest challenge for us, Matthew, is really just being patient. Honestly, like we are trying to build this up but in the right way, and there’s also like the getting to know you period with the licensor and making sure that we’re hitting on all the right points for them for their brand. And so like, we want to start running but we know it’s not the right thing to do and it’ll really start to ramp up as we get into 26, but 25 is going to be amazing for this team. Like, we can’t wait,” Rhea said. “We’ve got several really key products that we think are going to hit in 25, and then like I said, just being patient and making sure that we ramp it up in the right way and not too much too fast that’s not authentic in nature.”

Will you be picking up the Batman 85th Anniversary set, and which DC character do you want to see spotlighted most in the future? You can talk all things DC and trading cards with me on Threads and Twitter @mattaguilarcb!